{"id":568437,"date":"2026-08-14T03:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568437\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T03:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:38:10","slug":"young-talent-time-host-johnny-young-dies-aged-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568437\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Talent Time host Johnny Young dies, aged 79"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young Talent Time host Johnny Young has died aged 79 following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

“Johnny was the creator, host and producer of the much-loved television show Young Talent Time,” his family said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“He wrote and produced many iconic hit songs, including The Real Thing and Smiley.”<\/p>\n

Young Talent Time, a popular entertainment show, ran from 1971 until 1988 and nurtured a number of big Australian stars, including Dannii Minogue and Tina Arena.<\/p>\n

\"Tina<\/p>\n

Tina Arena was one of the young stars of Young Talent Time, hosted by Johnny Young. (Sergio Dionisio: AAP)<\/p>\n

Each episode of Young Talent Time finished with a singalong of The Beatles’ All My Loving.<\/p>\n

Young was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2010<\/a>, with Arena paying tribute to him at the ceremony by singing one of his tracks, Here Comes The Star, and describing him as “like a father” for the faith he showed when nurturing her skills on Young Talent Time.<\/p>\n

“He’s a dear man and I’ve never hidden the fact that he’s the reason I’m still here 30 years later,” she said at the time.<\/p>\n

Young said at the time that he was honoured to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had an amazingly lucky and fulfilling career, which started out in music when I was 14,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The Hall of Fame is a different kind of nod as it’s judged by my peers and rewards my songwriting and contribution to the music industry.”<\/p>\n

Old talent time<\/a><\/p>\n

Five legends of the Australian music industry, including Johnny Young, have been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Before hosting Young Talent Time, Young was a singer in his own right, having an Australian number one hit with Step Back.<\/p>\n

He was also the host of The Go!! Show in the 1960s<\/a>, following the resignation of Ian Turpie.<\/p>\n

Young won a Logie for Best Teenage Personality for his work on The Go!! Show in 1967.<\/p>\n

The Real Thing singer, Russell Morris, found a lifelong friend in Young. He paid tribute to him on ABC Radio Perth.<\/p>\n

“He was one of the most intelligent guys I’ve ever met,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He was the sort of guy that could take a situation, look at it, pull it apart, then put it back together and make a success of it.”<\/p>\n

Morris said Young’s contribution to Australian music, especially fledgling musicians, could not be understated.<\/p>\n

“Young Talent Time was one of the most important things that happened in Australia for young talent.<\/p>\n

“There was some great talent that came through that show. Debra Byrne. Just very, very talented people.”<\/p>\n

\"Johnny<\/p>\n

Johnny Young won a Logie for his work hosting The Go!! Show. (Supplied: National Film and Sound Archive)<\/p>\n

Young leaves behind his wife Marisha, sister Cornelia, daughters Anna and Fleur, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He also had a son, Craig, who had died.<\/p>\n

His family asked for privacy and said the details of a memorial service would be announced soon.<\/p>\n

Johnny Young was born Johnny Benjamin De Jong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young Talent Time host Johnny Young has died aged 79 following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. “Johnny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,279791,7126,156,279789,279790,111,139,69,6841,279792,279793,213866],"class_list":["post-568437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-cornelia","tag-dies","tag-entertainment","tag-johnny-young","tag-marisha","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pancreatic-cancer","tag-son-craig","tag-the-real-thing","tag-young-talent-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}